this is a very good article with suggestions by Miekie MVP, as she and most MVP's agree do not try using a registry cleaner they are not for novice users. The outline she presents is a very good one. Help! My computer is slow! You did not mention how much memory you have on that pc, can you tell us that please. If you do not know much about your pc and would like a good tool that will tell you everything about your pc get the free belarc tool. Belarc' and to make sure you do not have a malware infection you can get the free malwarebytes antimalware, install it update it then run full scan and allow it to remove all infections it finds. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

I thought I had upgraded to IE7 at one point. Yahoo wants me to upgrade to IE8, but after reading about it here, I was reluctant to do so. I did go to windows updates last week to see if there were any I needed to do, but after scanning it said there were none. How do I get IE 7?

There are so many things that can cause a computer to run slowly. When I first work on a slow computer, here are some of the steps I take to resolve the issue. NOTE: If the computer is new and you don't download music or screensavers, it is probably related to running software. - Clean out cookies, temp files, and temp internet files and reboot the computer. - Using Add/Remove programs to remove ONLY programs you have installed OR programs you are SURE will not hinder efficient operation of your computer - Go thru MSCONFIG to turn off unnecessary programs at startup. Use Google to learn about each item. - Use Task Manager (ctrl-alt-del) and check all running processes to ensure each is necessary to run. Use Google to learn about each one. Turning programs off here will only turn them off for this computer session. - Make note of the hard drive size and free space. Try to have at least 25% of the drive free for efficient Windows operations - Check how much RAM you have. Consider purchasing more if under 512mb for WinXP or if under 1 gb for Vista. Crucial is a well-respected site for purchasing additional RAM. - Check your anti-virus settings to see how it is configured, you might be able to change a setting or two to gain a lot more speed. Also, some anti-malware programs do more than protect against viruses - and that causes issues with a lot of computers. - LAST - Run Error-checking and then Defrag. Make sure you check both boxes to *Automatically fix file system error AND *Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors. NOTE: Never run Defrag without running Error-checking first! HTH, Candy G.

Dennis, thanks for a well laid out list of problems. It does help those who feel they can see some or all of your problems. AVG is by far the most popular free anti virus and I doubt that is your issue. I would not remove that one. Spyware Doctor I know nothing about. If you have the original CD or the download stored on your computer you could remove it entirely using the Add/Remove and see if that helps at all. Superantispyware and or Malwarebytes could be alternatives to trying Spybot Search & Destroy. If you use Spybot S&D be sure it is in fact that program and not a sound alike rogue program. Have you ran any cleaners at all? Not registry cleaners but the Disk cleanup in the Accessories/System Tools folder of XP. Try that and a defrag, it will help modestly. Do you have Google or Yahoo toolbars and are they allowed to run in the background? The Google Toolbar has either 3 or 4 entries in your Startup and using your resources. Click Start click Run type msconfig click OK click the Startup tab Now check each of these items and decide if they do in fact need to run. Google each entry before deciding to stop one because if you stop the wrong ones the computer may not start again. If you stop any you need to reboot. During the reboot you will get a dire warning, do not be alarmed, place a check mark not to see it again and continue the booting.